Guilt and Grief
by Trips to Neverland
Summary: What does it feel like to receive a phone call stating that the girl you loved has been killed? The thoughts of one Akai Shuichi after learning Akemi was killed.


Shuichi eyed the amber liquid and the golden glow of the glass-like cubes. Wrapping his fingers around the glass, he raised it to sip. A sour taste slipped into his mouth followed by a keen burn on his tongue and throat. He lowered the glass to the table, letting it fall heavily.

It was the last glass of the whiskey bottle he's just opened hoping to steal away his reality, but it only left him questioning how someone could feel this terrible after drinking the whole bottle.

It helped him to lose his sharpness, it was as if nothing from his surroundings existed, everything disappeared as all his energy centered around one thought, Akemi.

His eyes looked down at his phone for the fourth time in ten minutes.

'If I manage to leave the organization after this, will you go out with me as my real boyfriend? '

Yes, yes, yes… he wanted to tell her a thousand yes but as hard as it was, he preferred not to answer. He thought that making contact with her would risk her safety seeing that he's been uncovered as an FBI agent to the organization two years ago causing him to move back to America where he's been taking some smaller missions.

But now that James called him stating that Akemi was killed yesterday, he regretted it. In that moment the sure knowledge that life would go on without her, that time was only stopped for her, undid him completely. If only he knew he would've flown to Japan and protected her, he would've killed Gin before he'd killed her or he would've taken the bullet himself.

She was his only shelter back then when he sunk into the darkness of the organization, he sunk deep enough he could've turned into someone like Gin but Akemi was there to prevent it from happening and to remind him of the existing of light. And how he paid her back? By using her to get a higher ranking in the organization.

Looking at the name at the bottom of the text made his stomach roll. 'Dai kun' she didn't even get to know his real name. All he did was lying and all he got in return was her continued support and unconditional love.

One thing Shuichi didn't lie about is that he truly loved her. As if it weren't bad enough that he lost the girl he loved, he felt completely responsible for her death, that if it weren't for him she wouldn't have been dragged into the dirty work of the organization. The guilt sat on his chest and inside his brain making the grief even harder.

What is to replace those roots of her? Even if she wasn't next to him there was always a root to reach her, and he was certain he was going to walk it one day until Gin decided to burn it.

Shuichi stood up just to fall back down on the couch. It was only then that he realized he was actually drunk, everything around him swayed like if they were part of a mirror maze.

He stood again and toppled his way to the dark bedroom where he could feel the comfort of the bed to overtake the state of drunkenness.

* * *

After waking up in the morning to vomit taste in his mouth and a throat that felt like sandpaper, it was noon and Shuichi still had a head that felt like an axe was planted in it.

He felt adverse to bright light, he wrapped himself in the duvet with the curtains closed still, waves of nausea adding to his misery.

As he regained his full awareness he felt a sudden emptiness in his heart, a heavy feeling that's like the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders and there is nothing he can do to get out from under it.

Guilt was eating him and Greif was pestering him when he finally decided to leave the dark room again and back to the bathroom.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror, at the man who caused Akemi's death. Shuichi started aggressively bunching all of his thick overgrown hair within one of his long hands raising the stainless steel scissors to the base of his neck. His hair, which he had been growing out for nearly a decade, the only thing that had ever stuck by his side through thick and thin, and what Akemi used to comment on how much she loved it. Now turned into a reminder of what used to be.

Looking at his reflection with a short hair for the first time in years, a lump formed in his throat but tears failed to leave his green eyes. Sure she was dead, but first, he has to accept she is really gone then maybe he can cry.

He called and asked to be relocated to Japan after, he will get her revenge, and maybe then, just maybe, he can forgive the man he saw in the mirror.

* * *

Hi! This was written for a fanfic about ten times Shu and Jodie met but I figured it should be featured as an Akemi*Shu fanfic too so I removed the part where Jodie appeared and reposted it, hope u liked it.


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